“That’s enough for me!  You’ve lost the bet.  Let’s see—­what were the stakes, Mary?”

“Come, let’s walk on.”  She put her arm through his.  “What about this berth that Mr. Naylor’s offering you?  At Bogota, isn’t it?”

He looked puzzled for a moment; then his mind worked quickly back to Cynthia’s almost forgotten tragedy.  He laughed in enjoyment of her thrust.  “My place isn’t Bogota—­though I fancy that it’s rather in the same moral latitude.  You’re confusing me with Captain Cranster!”

“So I was—­for a moment,” said Doctor Mary demurely.  “But what about the appointment, anyhow?”

“What about your partnership with Dr. Irechester, if you come to that?”

Mary pressed his arm gently, and they walked on in silence for a little while.  They were clear of the neighborhood of Tower Cottage now, but still a considerable distance from Old Place; very much alone together on the heath, as they had seemed to be that night—­that night of nights—­at the cottage.

“I haven’t so much as received the offer yet; only Mr. Naylor has mentioned it to me.”

“Still, you’d like to be ready with your answer when the offer is made, wouldn’t you?” He drew suddenly away from her, and stood still on the road, opposite to her.  His face lost its playfulness; as it set into gravity, the lines upon it deepened, and his eyes looked rather sad.  “This is wrong of me, perhaps, but I can’t help it.  I’m not going to talk to you about myself.  Confessions and apologies and excuses, and so on, aren’t in my line.  I should probably tell lies if I attempted anything of the sort.  You must take me or leave me on your own judgment, on your own feelings about me, as you’ve seen and known me—­not long, but pretty intimately, Mary.”  He suddenly reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out the combination knife-and-fork.  “That’s all I’ve brought away of his from Tower Cottage.  And I brought it away as much for your sake as for his.  It was during our encounter over this instrument that I first thought of you as a woman, Mary.  And, by Jove, I believe you knew it!”

“Yes, I believe I did,” she answered, her eyes set very steadily on his.

He slipped the thing back into his pocket.  “And now I love you, and I want you, Mary.”

She fell into a sudden agitation.  “Oh, but this doesn’t seem for me!  I’d put all that behind me!  I—­” She could scarcely find words.  “I, I’m just Doctor Mary!”

“Lots of people to practice on—­bodies and souls too, in the moral latitude I’m going to!”

Her body seemed to shiver a little, as though before a plunge into deep water.  “I’m very safe here,” she whispered.

“Yes, you’re safe here,” he acknowledged gravely, and stood silent, waiting for her choice.

“What a decision to have to make!” she cried suddenly.  “It’s all my life in a moment!  Because I don’t want you to go away from me!” She drew near to him, and put her hands on his shoulders.  “I’m not a child, like Cynthia.  I can’t dream dreams and make idols any more.  I think I see you as you are, and I don’t know whether your love is a good thing.”  She paused, searching his eyes with hers very earnestly.  Then she went on, “But if it isn’t, I think there’s no good thing left for me at all.”